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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

My brother emailed me a video the other day of Ben Carson speaking on evolution at the Seventh Day Adventist General Conference in 2012. My brother commented that "he made some good points." I don't know much about Ben Carson, I did watch the movie about him called, Gifted Hands. He's an impressive doctor, and his personal story is inspiring. I was surprised to learn he belonged to the SDA church. Very surprised!

I had never given the SDA church a second thought until two years ago. I was at a dinner party and sat next to a lady who, as I learned through our conversation, happened to be SDA. She was a lovely lady and easy to talk to, so I asked her questions about her church. She told me of Ellen White, the prophet who helped found the church. Ellen was among the Millerites who expected Christ to return October 22, 1844. This event became known as the Great Disappointment. Many of these believers (Adventists, they were also called) were taunted for this failed prediction. In the aftermath of the nonevent, many Adventist's joined with the Shakers, some went back to their prior denominations, but Ellen White fell in with a small minority who claimed that something had happened on that day, but it had been misinterpreted. Ellen went on to have visions and eventually founded the SDA church, becoming one of the country's most prolific female writers.

Wow, I had never heard any of that before. This same dinner companion told me about a Bible study group that they held once a week, and that I should come to a function at her church that weekend. I kindly told her I would check my schedule and see if I was available. My husband was out of town, and I do like to go to different churches, he doesn't, so I thought I might possibly go just to be friendly. So here's the interesting part...when I got home that night and was laying in bed, I thought, oh, I should google the SDA church and learn more about it. Up comes all these "anti-SDA" websites, I know from my own experience that these are not really anti, they are just people who belonged to this church who have seen through the false prophecies etc. As I began to read I thought to myself, I wouldn't touch this church with a 10 ft. pole! That's when I realized what's happening to the LDS church. Someone meets a member, or a missionary and they go home and google Mormon church and they begin to read people's exit stories and all the many historical problems, truth claims, etc., and they think to themselves, I'm not touching that with a 10 ft. pole. Literally, I'm not going there, end of story, close the door. I had to experience this looking at the SDA church to realize what is happening to the Mormon church. Of course the corporate church knows that, and that's why Mormon ads are first on all the webpages, which they pay dearly for with your tithing dollars.

So here's the thing...I think I understand why people wouldn't vote for Romney because he was Mormon. I kind of feel the same way about Ben Carson because he's SDA. That may be wrong to think like that, it probably is, but that was my knee jerk reaction when I learned that he is SDA.